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Windows 8 users now outnumber Mac addicts

george

By george
in IT and Computers

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george Legendary Member

george

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Windows 8 users now outnumber Mac addicts

It took 11 months, but Microsoft's Windows 8 has passed Apple's OS X in market share, according to StatCounter.

StatCounter's numbers for September show 7.46 percent market share for Windows 8, an increase of 0.44 percent over the previous month. That was enough to surpass Mac market share, which dropped 0.2 percentage points to 6.98 percent.

Meanwhile, older versions of Windows are holding somewhat steady. Windows 7 saw a 0.03 drop to 51.98 percent share, Windows XP rose by 0.01 points to 20.59 percent and Windows Vista somehow gained 0.09 points, bringing it to 5.3 percent market share. So while Windows 8's market share is steadily rising, previous versions aren't going away.

If this news sounds familiar, it's because last month, rival measurement firm NetMarketShare found that Windows 8 market share had cruised past OS X in August. That trend continued in September, with Windows 8 rising to 8.02 percent, compared to 7.54 percent for OS X.

StatCounter and NetMarketShare use different methodologies, but both firms get their data by measuring traffic on a sampling of large websites—and both now place Windows 8 usage ahead of all versions of OS X combined.

-- PC World 2013-10-07

Full story: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2050510/windows-8-users-now-outnumber-mac-addicts.html

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USNret Silver Member

USNret

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Anyone see the irony here? Some years ago, Apple was given up for dead, it's market share was in the very low single digits and had no hope of recovery. Now it's news when the latest Windows installs overtakes the current OSX baseline. Apple has come a long, long way.

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pizzachang Advanced Member

pizzachang

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As a former user of "Vista" and now a Windows 8 user, I find the OS to be safe, reliable and easy to use. Drawbacks are incompatibility with older programs (nothing new in that experience) and most apps are sort of a 'dumbing down' versions of older type programs that worked fine. Does anyone notice that "apps" in general, are 'too simple'?

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Straight8 Silver Member

Straight8

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Nothing wrong with Windows 7, I use it on 2 computers but I just got a new laptop that came with Windows 8 and you know what.. I love it

The problem with the criticism on Windows 8 is that a majority of people who've tried it do not give it a fair go. They give up as soon as they see the start button has been removed and for them, that is it, it automatically labelled bad, back to Windows 7. Fair enough I say, stick with whatever you feel most comfortable with. I have a friend who refuses to give up XP and puts up with the issues that can be fixed by moving to at Least windows 7.

Windows 8 once accustomed to [ the most basics at the very minimum] grows on you rapidly. Now I look forward to using it each time and it's no surprise its gaining popularity.

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stevehaigh Platinum Member

stevehaigh

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Nothing wrong with Windows 7, I use it on 2 computers but I just got a new laptop that came with Windows 8 and you know what.. I love it

The problem with the criticism on Windows 8 is that a majority of people who've tried it do not give it a fair go. They give up as soon as they see the start button has been removed and for them, that is it, it automatically labelled bad, back to Windows 7. Fair enough I say, stick with whatever you feel most comfortable with. I have a friend who refuses to give up XP and puts up with the issues that can be fixed by moving to at Least windows 7.

Windows 8 once accustomed to [ the most basics at the very minimum] grows on you rapidly. Now I look forward to using it each time and it's no surprise its gaining popularity.

i keep an XP machine around for compatibility with some hardware that doesn't work on 7. i love 7 and would never 'upgrade' to 8.

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Chicog Star Member

Chicog

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Odd article to publish ... the world acknowledges that Macs are a niche market and always have been. Nothing quite like stating the obvious, just for the want of something to publish, I suppose.

There will always be a market for simple and pretty computers.

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Chicog Star Member

Chicog

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Nothing wrong with Windows 7, I use it on 2 computers but I just got a new laptop that came with Windows 8 and you know what.. I love it

The problem with the criticism on Windows 8 is that a majority of people who've tried it do not give it a fair go. They give up as soon as they see the start button has been removed and for them, that is it, it automatically labelled bad, back to Windows 7. Fair enough I say, stick with whatever you feel most comfortable with. I have a friend who refuses to give up XP and puts up with the issues that can be fixed by moving to at Least windows 7.

Windows 8 once accustomed to [ the most basics at the very minimum] grows on you rapidly. Now I look forward to using it each time and it's no surprise its gaining popularity.

i keep an XP machine around for compatibility with some hardware that doesn't work on 7. i love 7 and would never 'upgrade' to 8.

You're missing out. It's streets ahead of 7 (once you get shot of that crap UI).

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Chicog Star Member

Chicog

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Nothing wrong with Windows 7, I use it on 2 computers but I just got a new laptop that came with Windows 8 and you know what.. I love it

The problem with the criticism on Windows 8 is that a majority of people who've tried it do not give it a fair go. They give up as soon as they see the start button has been removed and for them, that is it, it automatically labelled bad, back to Windows 7. Fair enough I say, stick with whatever you feel most comfortable with. I have a friend who refuses to give up XP and puts up with the issues that can be fixed by moving to at Least windows 7.

Windows 8 once accustomed to [ the most basics at the very minimum] grows on you rapidly. Now I look forward to using it each time and it's no surprise its gaining popularity.

I don't agree. They should have called it WindoW 8 and be done with it.

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bkk_mike Platinum Member

bkk_mike

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I was forced to use Windows 8 for four months. Never did figure out where the advantages were supposed to be. This has to be a news release from Microsoft.

This guy really nerds out on it for like 23 minutes, but I agree with him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo

There are some advantages over Windows 7

Touchscreen support is the biggest.

Able to address more memory. (Windows 7 Home Premium only allows 16GB of RAM).

Proper kernel support for USB 3 (Windows 7 needs add-on drivers)

What got me about the stats though was them saying XP usage went up...

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NeverSure Star Member

NeverSure

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OK, my nightmare with Win 8, no chit. I bought a new Toshiba Satellite laptop just for travel. Win 8 Pro. So, being me, I hooked the hard disk to my desktop, deleted all of the the partitions with Disk Manager, and then ran Diskpart "clean" on it to completely wipe it. Oh, first I backed up the drivers.

So I install Win 7 Ultimate which works fine except the drivers don't work for ethernet, wireless, or graphics. 64 bit, all.

So I start installing software to try to find out the make of my main board and its parts. Turns out the brand is Toshiba, and the bios is some crap made by some company I never heard of - "Insyde"?. The chipsets are Intel.

NOW the bios has the product key hardcoded into it and it loads when installing. Great but you can't change it because it's now encrypted in the registry.

Windows 7 doesn't fall prey to this product key deal, so it installs just fine. But there are no drivers for Win 7 for those parts mentioned. They simply won't work, or in the case of display, they use a legacy driver.

So now I have a laptop where I've stupidly deleted the recovery partition to gain space, the OEM number doesn't match my product key in Win 8, so I'm stuck ordering an install DVD from Toshiba for $40. shipped. Of course I had to surf through and order the disk by serial no. and model no. They said it would be about 2 weeks.

So, no matter how badly you may want to install 7 on your new 8 factory computer, you may not be able to. The Win 8 drivers don't work on 7, 64 bit all.

This bios I never heard of must be working for Microsoft, LOL and the computer manufactures must get a better deal on Win 8 if they use this system???????

I think on a generic build with an off the shelf MOBO, there should be no problem. But with this mess, there is no stop screen in Win 8 install to enter the product ID, even with a generic disk. There is when installing 7.

So I'm sitting with a brand new but unusable laptop, waiting for a restore disk. If anyone knows a workaround, I'd love to hear it.

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cacruden Advanced Member

cacruden

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Based on sampling at my local Starbucks, Macs outnumber Windows by 10:1 ohmy.png

Amongst people dumb enough to pay that much for a cup of coffee?

Kinda proves the point, doesn't it.

thumbsup.gif

The current generation of Apple laptops are competitively priced for what you get. If you want a cheaper built product, then yes you get a cheaper product and Apple will not compete in that area. The manufacturers lobbied Intel to get special pricing because without it they could not compete with Apple in the same class as the Macbook Airs. I have both Windows and Apple products, my primary machine is still my early 2008 Mac Pro -- which I cannot see needing to replace for many years to come. My computers from other manufacturers generally have fallen on hard times by that time. I don't carry a laptop these days, only an iPad from time to time.... but if I did, I would buy an Apple product..... I do have one non-apple computer in use -- but I built that one myself. I have been pretty happy with my choice to switch in 2008.

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Turkleton Silver Member

Turkleton

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Apart from the fact that it's more ore less uninteresting, (who cares about Mac's?) there is a simple explanation:

In the civilized world, Win8 is pre-installed on almost every new notebook/laptop/pc/whatever.

And the "usual noob" won't replace it with another OS.

That's it.

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